7 gifts of the Holy Spirit: (1) Fear of the Lord

Yesterday I listed the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in their traditional order: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety and the Fear of the Lord.

While all grace that comes from God, including through the Holy Spirit, is due solely to God and his love and mercy, these gifts of the Holy Spirit can only be successfully received and grown if a person works in partnership with God to cultivate his or her receptivity to the gift.

This post suggests the most fruitful approach to doing exactly that.

If you look at the list, rather than being in sorted in an order of greatest to lowest importance, or of greatest to lowest difficulty, it helps to view the list as a bottom to top building structure. I recommend that you view each gift as depending on the previous gift for support, starting with the first item at the bottom of the list, "Fear of the Lord."

Now, I am not saying that one can receive the gifts only one at a time, with a bottom up precedence of order. Instead, to use an analogy, think of it as learning seven subjects in school at once, but advancing in all seven of those subjects from year to year as you ascend your school's levels. However, looking at the subject of reading, for example, one cannot write, a second subject, unless one can first read and recite the letters of one's alphabet. And you cannot learn anything at all if you do not have the desire to learn, either willingly or because your parents make you go to school, because it is their will and it is also the law.

"Fear of the Lord," therefore, must be the first gift from the Holy Spirit that you understand, welcome and cultivate, in order for you to genuinely acquire the other gifts. "Fear of the Lord" is like, to use our analogy, being required to go to school in the first place. Many of us remember our first day at school. Some children could not wait to go to school, eager to get an education, and also to be with their friends. Other children were not so eager, but they may have been motivated by the realization that going to school is part of being "all grown up," because many children are eager to become a "big boy" or a "big girl," and no longer be a baby. Still other children, though very few, really don't want to go to school, perhaps they are shy and fearful, but fortunately, if they have to go, with time they soon find that school is not as bad as they expected.

Many people, particularly in modern times where people have such high opinions of themselves, misunderstand and even resent what they think is implied by the concept of "Fear of the Lord." When humans are instructed to have "Fear of the Lord," they are not being told to focus on being in a state of fear, or of being in terror of the Lord, anymore than one is expected to be in fear or terror of one's loving parents. (As usual, in my analogies, we are speaking of normal people and not an abusive parent, for example). The number one fear that a baby and then an infant has is being separated from their loving parents, until they grow up a little and want to explore life, but knowing that mother or father is safely nearby. This is the essence of the meaning of "Fear of the Lord."

When one has the gift of "Fear of the Lord," one dreads and fears even the thought of ever being separated from God. You do not yet need to know anything about God in order to fear ever losing him. For example, as a baby, you know nothing about your parents, except that you need them, love them, and feel safe in their protection. As a baby you do not even know your parents' names, or their ages, or anything about them (or yourself for that matter). Yet you would fear, if you were ever put in that position, losing one or both of your parents, without knowing any of their qualities, or any facts about them as yet. That is like having to go to school in order to learn. You are not expected to already know the alphabet or counting, because that is what you are being sent to school in order to learn. This is why "Fear of the Lord" is really the first and foundational gift from the Holy Spirit, upon which all the other gifts rest on and depend on.

Now, as you mature, over the years you start to realize that you not only fear ever losing your relationship with God, but you realize that there are consequences of ever losing God. Again, to use the example of the baby, you fear losing your father because you love him and need his protection. But as a baby you don't know all the consequences if your father was lost to you, since you do not yet understand that he earns money that allows you to have shelter, food and clothes. All you know as a baby would be a terrible emotional loss if you lost your father, but only as you become an older child would you start to learn how life works, and what the list of consequences of loss of your father might be.

This is why children are taught about God in pretty much this order: that God exists, that you should love and rely on God, that you should respect God, and that you should not want to lose God just as you would not want to lose your parents. As children age they start to learn how to please God and have a relationship with him, and what actions, such as sin, jeopardize their relationship with God. Still later they understand the "why's" of sin, and even later do they start to learn about the grave consequences of continual and unrepentant sin. So proper teaching of God naturally starts with the same model of love and respect for God that the child has for his or her parents. By no means are children forced to "fear God because of hell or of being punished with bad things in life" if they are raised in a proper household.

So "Fear of the Lord" can be well understood as being at its early and most fundamental level, recognition that there is no life without God, and that one's most fervent wish is to always have a relationship with God. One fears losing the love and protection of God, just as a baby one would fear ever losing your parent. If you do not have that reality based understanding of every human's relationship to God, then all else that you learn in life, including the other gifts of the Holy Spirit, is skewed. If you do not grow up with proper "Fear of the Lord," it is like if no one forced you to go to school, and neither did they home school you, but you were put out as a street urchin every day, but still expected to learn the alphabet and how to count, and eventually receive your diploma. How can you receive a diploma if you do not go to school, say nothing of learning what you need to learn? Likewise, if you do not have "Fear of the Lord," you cannot learn about God or about the reality of secular life, and eventually you come to realize that your very diploma of life is at risk, putting your eternal life and salvation at risk.

I hope that you have found this helpful.